Welcome to the Twenty-second Speed Sculpting Challenge. Whether you're new to sculpting, to the Threedy forums, or you're a seasoned veteran, come and join in on the Sculpting madness – there's plenty of fun and learning to be had by all!

1. The competition will run until the 31st of January 2010, 11:59 PM GMT+0 (For information about GMT click here); the time between now and then will be allocated to creating and submitting the entries, followed by several days of judging and voting for the entries – at which point the next competition should start.

2. You will be supplying your own base mesh for the competition, from which you will start sculpting. You can create your base mesh in any application ( 3dsmax, Maya, XSI, Cinema4D, Zspheres in Zbrush, etc ) using any technique, with no limits. Do not use an already made base mesh, you must build it specifically for this challenge.

3. There is a fixed time limit for your sculpting. Do not exceed the time limit, it is part of the challenge.

4. Do not add any meshes other than those sanctioned in this competition brief.

5. You will have to supply a wireframe screenshot of your base mesh/meshes along with your final entry image ( see rule 7 ).

6. No rendering, texturing, lighting or rigging – let's keep it all about the high-res sculpt! What we are looking for is the quality of the sculpt you can produce. If your entry is not complete, you can still post as long as it's recognizable and on topic.

7. For your final entry, post a screen-grab from your software with your finished work in it, along with your screenshot of the base meshes used ( see rule 5 ). It's fine to present this stuff nicely, with nice labeling etc., but do not add any post-production to the images themselves. These images must be uploaded to our servers by using the "Manage Attachments" button on the forum reply page. Do not link to external image files. Larger than the maximum size or posts containing links to external images (other than for reference materials) will be removed and the poster disqualified.

8. You can create multiple sculpts, but you can have only one final entry for each competition.

9. Do not create your own WIP thread. Simply post all WIP screen-grabs in here and your FINAL entry in the Final Submissions thread.

These rules apply to everybody taking part – there will be NO exceptions!

A new year dawns over the Earth. The demonic invasion brought by Armageddon has taken the planet by force and has forever changed the order of things. Civilization has been utterly annihilated and what remains of humanity's great cities is now more like an alien landscape of dust, ruins and destruction.

The Demonic Overseer has moved its gaze unto other planes of existence, leaving our burnt world behind. But with the new year, after the smoke clears, comes the time of a new breed of life. A neohuman race. Our followers. Those that will become the new masters of what we left behind ( what's left of it ).

Your task is to imagine and design this new species that will become the dominant life on Earth. It can be one of the current species of our ecosystem, that has somehow adapted to the new conditions following the invasion. It can be a mutation between several species. It can be your vision of how humanity would possibly come out of Armageddon ( changes to our physiology, proportions ).

Bonus points for making an imaginative pedestal for it!

As before, there is no limit on the number of basemeshes, just on the time you spend on them and the sculpt itself.

As always, you can choose a realistic style for your sculpt, but you can also try your hand at a stylized version as well. You can do a head or a bust, but a full body sculpt is extremely recommended.

Let's try this out:Download the free application CamStudio here, and record your progress on the sculpt ( set it to save about one frame per second ). You will not have to display it to the public, only to the judges in case you qualify in the top three. Of course, you don't need to complete the whole sculpt in one sitting, so just resume recording whenever you return to the sculpt ( multiple video recording files are acceptable ). Feedback on this idea is welcome!

Please read all the rules and brief carefully. If there are any further questions, ask and they shall be answered.